


Tell Mama

by Missy



Category: Burn Notice
Genre: Character Bashing, Holding Hands, Humor, M/M, Relationship Advice, Trope Subversion/Inversion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-01
Updated: 2012-07-01
Packaged: 2017-11-08 22:36:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/448312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maddie thinks they ought to figure it out for themselves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tell Mama

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Small fandom Fest round 11, prompt: Burn Notice, Michael/Sam and Madeline, Maddie listens to the things that Sam says and the things that Michael doesn't say, and says a few things of her own.

“…And that’s the problem,” Sam continued, popping the cap off his bottle of Schlitz. “Ever since Fi went to prison he’s been marching around like a zombie.”

“He just lost Fiona,” Madeline noted idly. She puffed on her cigarette while Sam left an enormous ring of mug sweat on her table. “I wouldn’t be dancing on air.”

“Yeah – well, he can do better than Fiona,” Sam growled. “That little girl’s been running him around in circles ever since she came back to Miami. Now that she’s run away back to Ireland, Mike’s all alone and we’ve got all the trouble she left behind strapped to our backs. ”

“I thought the two of you had stopped fighting,” Madeline replied.

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean Fi’s right for Mikey. He deserves….” 

Madeline raised an eyebrow and waited for Sam to continue, but he trailed off and peeled the label from his bottle of ale. “He deserves someone who’ll treat him like he’s the important thing in the whole wide world, y’know?”

“I know you’ve eaten all of my salami and you owe me twenty bucks to replace it.”

Sam chuckled nervously and tapped his pockets. “And I’ll do that…next week! When I get my wallet…which is in my other pants.” 

She eyeballed him over the top of her wine glass. “I just saw you pay off that gardener to get closer to a beer delivery truck. Put up or shut up, Sam.”

He rolled his eyes. “You’re such a generous host, Mad.”

“I’m only generous when you’re not jealous of my son’s girlfriend.”

“EX-girlfriend. And there’s no way in hell I’m jealous of Fiona.”

Madeline shrugged. “You seem pretty interested in his feelings,” she replied quite cheerfully. “It’s almost as if you’re trying to figure out if he’s….”

“And that’s way too far,” he declared. “I’m gonna take my beer and go hang out upstairs. If the little phone rings, don’t pick it up.”

Madeline sighed. They seemed to be in a constant protective hover over her, ever since Jesse nearly died during her hostage crises. “All right - I’ll just shoot it until it goes to voicemail.”

Sam shook his head and climbed toward the bedroom. “You’re something else Madeline.”

She knew that well. But then again, so was Sam.

*** 

Michael arrived later in the day, during the most sweltering part of the afternoon, to help her fix her broken washer and dryer. Madeline fulfilled her role as a concerned, bemused mother quite well; she made sandwiches and fixed packets of powered lemonade, all while Michael grumbled and tightened screws.

She finally coaxed him down with chicken salad, lemonade and the promise of being more easily understood than a raft of instructions printed in Mandarin. 

“So how are you feeling?” she asked.  
He eyeballed her from across the table, accusations written in the arch of his eyebrow, the tone of his voice. “All right.”

“Would you like more mayonnaise on those?” She smiled broadly and indicated the large plate of sandwiches she’d laid before him.

“It tastes fine,” he replied. 

“If you need….”

“Ma. It’s fine,” he said. “EVERYTHING is fine.”

Madeline’s response was voiced with serene honesty. “You don’t sound fine, Michael.”

He chewed with deliberation before swallowing. “I don’t want to talk about Fiona.”

“I’m not going to force you to,” she said, puffing away on her Marlboro. Silence filled the room, and Madeline, in her infinite wiseness, let it linger. He had survived interrogation in Siberia, after all, and she knew he could hold out for a very long time if he needed to. Instead she simply played with the end of her cigarette and watched Michael chew. 

Eventually, he would volunteer the information himself – which he did with a sigh. “She sent me a postcard last week,” he said. “Ireland is apparently beautiful this time of year. And she’s found the right man to help her open a shooting range.”

Her eyes crinkled, her heart aching as it lurched in instinctive response to his pain. “Oh honey, I’m so sorry…” Maddie reached out for his hand, but it skittered away like a paper blowing in the wind.

“We’ve been over for months,” he said calmly. “And I have much bigger things to be worried about, don’t I?”

She grimaced in response, took a deeper drag of her cigarette. “Anson’s alive and well, and you’ve got to take him down, even with Fiona out of the way.”

He chugged the rest of his beer, then said, “I know that. Which is why you’re going to Disney World.”

“No, I’m not,” she said.

“Sam will take good care of you,” he said, smiling rather mysteriously. 

She raised an eyebrow. “You trust Sam a lot, don’t you?

“With my life - and yours. Which is why I want you to be safe and go with him today.”

Madeline refused to lie down and take that suggestion; she’d, after all, become rather adept at protecting herself. “Which one of us just shot an intruder?”

He groaned. “That was an emergency!”

“Just let me be an adult, Michael. Let go a little.”

“All right.” He sighed, pulled out his cell phone, and checked his missed calls. “When did you last see Sam?”

She stubbed out her cigarette. “This afternoon. Why, are you worried about him?”

“Yes in one sense, no in another,” he replied. “I just wish he’d take better care of himself.”

“So do I,” she admitted. But Michael’s concern was visible, and therefore a bit out of the ordinary. “Has he been feeling sick?” He hadn’t looked sick when she’d seen him.

“No. It’s Elsa. She’s been monitoring his junk food intake even more closely than normal, and it’s making him crazy.”

“Since when do you care about his sex life?”

Michael raised an eyebrow at her. “I care about how Sam feels. I just think he deserves so much better than her.”

Madeline was unsurprised that they were of like mind – which was why her tone and expression remained utterly neutral. “He told me that about you this morning.”

The back door swung open, admitting Sam in a loose-fitting shirt and a pair of stained jeans. “Mad, do me a favor – stop leaning so hard on the clutch…the breaks are….” he glanced from Michael’s open astonishment to Madeline’s arch expression – and automatically sniffed his underarms.

The argument flared up out of the blue, sparked by the confusion in Michael’s eyes. “Why are you telling my mother I deserve better than Fi?” Michael snapped.

“I dunno, Mikey – maybe it’s the same reason you think Elsa’s the pits!”

“She’s stifling you!”

“I think stifling someone’s a minor crime compared to getting them blown to kingdom come!” Sam growled.

 

A high-pitched whistle snapped both men out of their dogfight. Madeline had finally reached the end of her rope with them both. “The two of you need to work this out,” she said, pushing herself away from the table, “without tearing down Fiona and Elsa - both of whom are nice ladies. Not gargoyles.” She opened the knife drawer and pulled out a .45 and a small box of bullets. “Have fun. I’ll be upstairs,” she said, relishing their astonished expressions, “learning how to load this thing.”

She couldn’t have asked for a better exit, and the glow of her accomplishment lasted for the rest of the day. One that grew when she emerged from her house with a loaded pistol and noticed Sam and Michael were holding hands as they sat waiting for her on the dark chest of the Charger.

THE END


End file.
